Factors That Strengthen Community Resilience to Externally Initiated and Controlled Tourism in Post-Conflict Destinations: The Role of Amenity Migrants and Management Policies

Abstract

This study examines community resilience in post-conflict tourism destinations of the Global South, where externally initiated and controlled tourism development often prevails. Using a conceptual research approach grounded in a comprehensive literature review, the paper identifies critical conditions for resilience-building in these fragile contexts. It demonstrates that post-conflict tourism development typically unfolds in three stages: an initial phase of rapid growth driven by external stakeholders, followed by community awakening to tourism’s impacts, and culminating in community-led efforts to regain control. The study argues that even when initial tourism development exceeds local adaptive capacities, it can initiate a gradual process of resilience-building through proactive community action and supportive policies. The transformative potential of amenity migrants is emphasized, as they can shift from being stressors to becoming agents of change, fostering resilience, provided they are successfully integrated into local communities. The paper also advocates for longitudinal research to better understand the dynamics of amenity migrants’ assimilation and their role in resilience-building, particularly in the Global South, where empirical evidence remains limited. The findings provide valuable insights for designing strategies to achieve sustainable and inclusive tourism development in post-conflict and other vulnerable destinations, offering a pathway to empower local communities and foster long-term resilience.

1. Introduction

Tourism is often considered a viable option for facilitating economic recovery in countries overcoming political conflict [1,2,3,4,5,6]. While an increasing number of studies address tourism recovery from sudden crises such as natural disasters, far less attention has been devoted to tourism in post-conflict contexts. Unlike natural disasters, conflicts tend to impact the tourism industry more profoundly and for longer durations [7]. Consequently, much of the post-conflict tourism literature focuses on the reconstruction of destination image and branding as key elements of recovery [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. Given that tourism is a beneficiary of peace [20], post-conflict peace often triggers or stimulates the development of tourism [3,7].

However, case studies show that successful tourism development in post-conflict settings faces numerous challenges [1,3,6,21,22]. Evidence suggests that once security is restored, some destinations recover quickly and unexpectedly, leading to challenges such as rapid and uncontrolled tourism growth [23]. These challenges are exacerbated by socio-political and economic vulnerabilities resulting from the conflict, particularly in the Global South or so-called ‘fragile states’ [6]. At the local level, where economic activities are often limited, communities experience the repercussions of externally initiated and managed tourism, leading to social change and weakened cohesion among local residents [24].

The concept of resilience, defined as the capacity of a system to absorb disturbances, adapt, and reorganize while undergoing change [7,25,26,27,28,29], has gained increasing attention among tourism researchers. Resilience has proven to be a useful framework for understanding the ability to cope with crises, systemic shocks, and change [30,31]. In tourism, resilience studies have primarily focused on natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes, and social upheavals like banking crises, wars, or revolutions [30,32,33,34,35,36].

Fewer studies have examined tourism resilience as the ability of social, economic, or ecological systems to recover from tourism-induced stress [37,38,39,40,41]. Research addressing post-conflict tourism recovery typically focuses on the ability of destinations to return to their pre-conflict state or to reorganize and thrive after the conflict ends [3,6,21,22]. However, most such studies have been conducted at national or regional scales, with only a few analyzing rapid tourism growth at the destination level following armed political conflicts [23,42]. Even fewer have explored tourism development as a consequence of the reconfiguration of spaces in post-conflict transitions, particularly in destinations without prior tourism activities.

Resilience is often conceptualized as a capacity to respond to crises. Crises, however, have a transformational quality, enabling resilience to be viewed as a dynamic process of ‘bouncing forward’, reacting to crises by transitioning to a new, potentially more desirable state [43,44]. This perspective suggests that tourism destination communities can capitalize on and build resilience from crisis events [25,26,27,38]. While this adaptive trait has been widely studied, fewer works have examined resilience as a dynamic, long-term state capable of addressing incremental threats to destination longevity [26,41].

During conflicts, areas with attractive ecological or cultural resources often become inaccessible [11], while their residents face technological and cultural lock-in characterized by poor access to education, technology, and alternative economic activities. The cessation of political armed conflicts creates an opening for opportunistic tourism development, which local communities often struggle to resist or control. Unexploited natural areas attract foreign or domestic migrants, often referred to as amenity migrants, who view such areas as ideal for business opportunities [45]. This phenomenon has been primarily explored in developed countries, with limited research on its implications for local communities in post-conflict contexts [46]. In many such destinations, while industry growth may be accelerating due to migrant influx, resilience may not [3,6].

Faulkner [47] observed that the root causes of crises are often self-inflicted, stemming from inadequate management structures or an inability to adapt to change. Despite this, some communities adapt effectively to new circumstances, prompting questions about the qualities or conditions that enable certain communities to survive, adapt, or thrive following crises. Scholars such as Bec et al. [37], Becken [32], and Prayag [28] have called for more research on adaptive capacity and the transformative potential of tourist destinations. Similarly, Hopkins and Becken [48] questioned why certain individuals, communities, or institutions evolve while others remain unchanged. While resilience remains a largely theoretical concept with limited operationalization [28,34] and application at national or regional scales [49,50], its application at the community and destination levels represents an ideal framework for analysis [28,51]. In the words of Prayag [51] (p. 134), “here in lies the importance of shifting the academic debate to resilience building activities of individuals, organizations, communities and destinations”.

This study builds on the authors’ prior work on governance, social capital, and barriers to community-based tourism development. Using a conceptual research approach grounded in a comprehensive literature review, it seeks to define, illustrate, and operationalize resilience in the context of externally initiated and managed tourism development. Specifically, this paper explores the following research questions: (1) What conditions shape community resilience in the context of externally initiated and controlled tourism? (2) What role do external entrepreneurs play in strengthening community resilience? (3) How can external entrepreneurs be effectively integrated into local communities? (4) What locally implemented strategies or policies can support this integration and enhance community resilience?

The paper posits that while crises may initially weaken community resilience, they can also create opportunities for adaptation and resilience-building in subsequent stages. It further identifies and discusses the critical conditions that either strengthen or undermine resilience in destinations characterized by the dominant role of external entrepreneurs that play a critical role in shaping local governance and social capital.

By presenting a framework of concepts and mechanisms, this study contributes to the literature by offering analytical tools to better understand community resilience as a response to long-term structural changes. It enriches the theoretical understanding of resilience by linking it with amenity migration, operationalizing a largely theoretical concept for practical application in destination planning and management. It is argued that, due to their specific conditions, post-conflict destinations typically undergo three critical stages of tourism development after regaining peace. Each stage exhibits distinct characteristics in relation to resilience. Unlike resilience to sudden crises, which often involve system breakage followed by reorganization, this study demonstrates that reorganization in post-conflict destinations is a slow and incremental process, responding to progressive pressures and systemic deterioration. The paper examines the role of external entrepreneurs as stressors during the initial stage of tourism development when communities are most vulnerable. It highlights the conditions necessary for these entrepreneurs to be integrated into the ‘transformed’ or ‘reshaped’ community and to shift their roles toward fostering resilience for the entire community to which they now belong. The findings presented are highly applicable not only to post-conflict destinations but also to many rural, ancestral, indigenous, or remote communities worldwide. These communities often fail to capitalize on the opportunities presented by tourism and instead succumb to externally initiated and controlled tourism development, which offers limited benefits to the local population.

2. Materials and Methods

The study employed a conceptual research approach grounded in a comprehensive literature review of both theoretical and, more importantly, empirical research to define, illustrate, and operationalize aspects of resilience in the context of externally initiated and controlled tourism development.

Table 1. Sources used in the review.

Source of Publication (Journals)	Frequency
Journal of Sustainable Tourism	31
Annals of Tourism Research	10
Current Issues in Tourism	10
Tourism Geographies	10
Tourism Management	10
Community Development Journal	6
Journal of Travel Research	5
Sustainability	5
Global Environmental Change	3
International Journal of Tourism Research	3
Journal of Destination Marketing and Management	3
Land	3
Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes	3
Ecology and Society	2
Environment and Planning A	2
Journal of Business Venturing	2
Journal of Peasant Studies	2
Journal of Rural Studies	2
Society and Natural Resources	2
Sociologia Ruralis	2
Tourism Management Perspectives	2
Tourism Planning and Development	2
Tourism Review	2
Source of Publication (books)	21

presents the sources of the analyzed studies with a frequency of two or more occurrences. Figure 1 illustrates the distribution of publication years for the sources used. In total, the review incorporates papers from 71 different peer-reviewed journals and 21 books. A comprehensive table listing all analyzed sources, along with a brief description of each, is provided in Supplementary Materials. Additionally, the sources are categorized based on their relevance to key topics discussed in this paper, including post-conflict resilience, tourism resilience, community-based tourism, amenity migration, and lifestyle entrepreneurship. The research was positioned within the pragmatist paradigm, emphasizing practical problem-solving [52], specifically addressing the challenge of operationalizing the largely theoretical concept of resilience to make it applicable to destination planning and management.

The study draws from multiple concepts, perspectives, and theoretical and empirical literature streams, combining various conceptualizations of resilience: as a response to sudden crises or shocks [7], as a dynamic and long-term state [26], and as a driver of change [28]. These perspectives were synthesized to address resilience in the specific context of externally initiated and controlled tourism development. To illustrate these concepts, the paper frequently references a case study from Minca, Colombia [53,54], alongside other published cases, providing a practical example to contextualize and validate the theoretical framework.

3. Resilience of What to What or to Whom?

Resilience has received significant attention in the academic literature to the extent that scholars have debated whether it has become a mere ‘buzzword’ [44]. Initially defined in the 1970s as the ability of a system to return to equilibrium or a steady state [55], the concept has evolved considerably over time and has been applied in various contexts. While engineering resilience was focused on the speed by which the system returns to equilibrium, ecological resilience focused on the magnitude of disturbance a system could absorb before undergoing structural change. Although the concept of ecological resilience recognized the ability to adapt [56], it has long remained rooted in the idea of returning to an original state, reducing resilience to an emergency response mechanism [37,44].

Subsequent work expanded the concept to include evolutionary resilience or socio-ecological system (SES) resilience [57], emphasizing the capacity of systems not only to absorb disturbances but also to adapt, reorganize, or transform in response to change [26,57]. Resilience, thus, transcends the idea of maintaining equilibrium, instead representing a cyclical process of adaptation and progression to new states [28,58]. Transformations may occur at varying speeds, with periods of gradual, slow change interspersed with rapid shifts [27]. This conceptualization positions resilience as a dynamic, long-term process characterized by incremental and moderate changes [37,59], making it both an outcome and a process [34], and aligning it more closely with the concept of sustainability [26]. Examples of slow-moving variables include the effects of neoliberal economic policies on local economies and cultures, even in remote regions [59,60], or the impacts of top-down tourism development [41].

In a social context, and recognizing its transformative potential, resilience has been defined as “social learning and transformation in society that leads local communities and external actors to learn from unexpected changes and to transform toward empowering local capacities, mitigating risks and impacts, and enhancing wellbeing and resilience at all levels of social-ecological governance” [61] (p. 895). More specifically, rural resilience is described as “the capacity for resistance, adaptation, and transformation, which can be boosted via the strengthening of social capital” [62] (p. 105). However, social contexts are often characterized by conflicting interests among various stakeholders. This raises the question of resilience from whose perspective, and for what purpose? [44]. Such questions introduce normative judgments, often necessitating alignment with specific interests, which can marginalize other groups. Power dynamics and politics play critical roles, as some groups may benefit from resilience-building efforts while others bear the costs [28].

For post-conflict governments, the primary goal is often to attract economic investment to previously inaccessible areas, with tourism being viewed as a sustainable tool for improving the quality of life for local communities [63]. However, neoliberal reforms have reoriented economies away from protectionism and toward global economic integration, emphasizing competitive advantage and free trade [64]. In this context, community development is often framed under the premise that “the poor are underutilized markets in need of private sector investment” [65] (p. 399).

During conflicts, areas rich in ecological and cultural resources are often inaccessible due to risks such as landmines, firefights, kidnappings, and other forms of violence [11]. Once conflicts end, these landscapes frequently become focal points of economic transition, creating openings for opportunistic development that local communities find difficult to resist or control [66,67]. The migration of tourism investors can disproportionately harm local populations [68], and in some cases, even displace local people [69].

The small size and relative remoteness of many communities, coupled with a lack of governmental interest in rural areas, exacerbate these challenges. Governments often show little initiative to protect or engage with such communities until they become established as viable tourism destinations [70,71]. By this stage, external entrepreneurs often dominate the tourism sector, leaving local communities with diminished agency. Crises or transformative changes of this magnitude test the resilience of destinations and host communities. For many communities already impacted by conflict, culturally and economically significant territories are further subjected to external control and influence [11].

In the initial stages of tourism development, external entrepreneurs are as often perceived as potential agents of change who could stimulate new tourism development and innovation [72] as they are sources of crisis [73]. This paper argues that as tourism progresses, these stakeholders may integrate into the community, transitioning from stressors to contributors to resilience-building. This progression highlights the dynamic nature of resilience and the evolving roles of external actors in shaping the long-term sustainability of communities.

4. Conditions That Influence Community Resilience to Externally Initiated and Controlled Tourism

Community-based tourism (CBT) is a model designed to maximize locally captured benefits while minimizing the negative impacts of tourism [74,75]. A primary requirement for CBT is the active participation of communities in tourism planning and development [76,77,78]. The term ‘community’ often implies a cohesive social entity pursuing collective benefits, governed by structures that lead its members toward shared development goals. In reality, however, communities are neither harmonious nor homogeneous [79,80,81]. Instead, they comprise diverse groups of individuals with differing interests, agendas, and opinions [82,83].

Communities are also not static; their composition evolves due to factors such as forced relocation, migration, rural-urban labor and resource flows, and shifts in agricultural practices [80]. Communities are continuously developed and redefined through social interactions [84,85]. People move in and out, with emigration and the arrival of new residents altering community dynamics [86]. Beyond changes in human composition, communities demonstrate “constant adaptive responses to change and development of the ability to thrive in environments characterized by change” [87] (p. 403). These shifts expose communities to diverse cultures, ideas, and practices, which in turn influence social capital and redefine collective identity.

Social capital refers to the social networks and relationships characterized by shared norms, mutual obligations, trust, and reciprocity, which foster collaboration to achieve common goals [88]. Social capital strengthens agency within the community, defined as “a process of building relationships that increase the capacity of local people in uniting, act, and adapt to changing conditions” [85] (p. 738). Agency is crucial for resilience, enabling communities to negotiate, compromise, and reconcile differing individual and collective interests [89]. Communities with high levels of social capital tend to exhibit greater trust and willingness to engage in collective action, fostering resilience [90]. Conversely, communities marked by distrust or internal conflict struggle to cooperate, often engaging in power struggles that can have detrimental effects, particularly during crises [53].

Power dynamics also play a significant role in building resilience [39,40,91]. Power encompasses control over resources, decision-making authority, land ownership, access to information, and the ability to manage tourism and implement development plans [92,93]. Addressing power imbalances is central to equitable and sustainable CBT development [76,81,94,95,96,97,98]. External entrepreneurs often bring new resources, ideas, skills, and network connections, offering significant potential to foster local development [72]. However, they may also prioritize financial gains, which can disadvantage local communities, intensify competition, and generate internal resentment [99,100,101,102]. Indeed, many CBT case studies explicitly suggest that the absence of external stakeholders has had only a positive impact on the initiatives [29,100,103].

In post-conflict contexts, a frequent outcome of external entrepreneurship is the loss of community land to domestic or international investors [104]. In remote tourism areas, control over land is closely tied to control over the tourism industry [105,106]. Secured land tenure enables communities to negotiate tourism development in line with their needs and priorities [107]. Control over land and resources also influences critical development factors such as scale, speed, and stakeholder involvement [108]. Collective land ownership, while limiting in some respects, provides more favorable conditions for collective decision-making and a higher level of community control, reducing unwanted competition [109,110,111,112,113]. Losing control over resources often results in the commodification of local culture and values, potentially leading to conflicts [114,115].

Empowering communities requires redistributing power between local and external stakeholders. If private actors resist sharing power to protect profits, the responsibility to address these imbalances falls to government authorities [116]. Empowerment involves engaging community members in planning and decision-making, fostering adaptive governance, and building resilience through collective action [78,117]. Empowered communities gain adaptive governance capacity to respond to unexpected events, enabling the ability to react to external stimuli and modify behavior accordingly, which are characteristics of resilience [7,118].

Governance structures can serve as either key enablers or barriers to tourism system resilience [40,51]. Strong community governance, supported by local institutions, fosters resilience through the establishment of internally agreed-upon rules and regulations designed to protect communities from external pressures [53,54,119]. In cases of individual land ownership, robust community organizations have been shown to play a critical role in uniting communities around common tourism development goals and persuading members not to sell land to foreign investors [40,120]. These organizations have also proven effective in lobbying local governments to establish regulatory frameworks that safeguard community interests and limit tourism development by external investors [38,121].

Community governance can be further enhanced when local and national governments create a favorable legal environment and institutional structures that enable collaboration and complementarity between states, markets, and communities [122,123]. To prevent external stakeholders from taking control of local resources and the tourism industry, policymakers must support communities in realizing and maintaining their rights to control tourism development. This does not suggest that communities should remain isolated from external actors; on the contrary, external assistance often plays a vital role in the success of CBT initiatives [124,125]. Cooperation with external private and public stakeholders can also yield significant benefits [73]. However, the emphasis should be on ensuring that such cooperation occurs on terms acceptable to the community, rather than through the imposition of a free-market tourism model that fosters competition with external forces operating from unequal positions of power. It is equally important to formalize this control and for governments to support the continued development of organized, community-focused tourism initiatives [123].

The role of local institutions is also to strengthen existing community-based organizations (CBO) or to create new ones that integrate community stakeholders, external entrepreneurs, and local authorities into planning and development. CBO can act as an umbrella organization, for example, a cooperative in the case of CBT based on microenterprises managed by community members, or as a central organization supporting local businesses through capacity building and linking with state-sponsored programs [93,119,126]. Such CBO ensures a high level of legitimacy, which is required for decision-making, local policy-making, and the establishment of contractual relationships with potential new stakeholders. CBO provides a common level of coordination in terms of the planning and commercialization of the product, but not in terms of collective work and benefit sharing, which is not ideal for community building as it does not foster reciprocity [127].

5. Stages of Post-Conflict Resilience to Externally Initiated and Controlled Tourism

5.1. Stage 1—Inception: Peace Agreement and Initiation of Tourism by External Stakeholders

Post-conflict destinations characterized by attractive natural and/or cultural resources for tourism development experience steady growth is driven by increased accessibility to those resources by private investors and public authorities recognizing the new potential [54]. This process corresponds to exploration and early development stages in the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) model [128], with the notable difference in the much-accelerated speed of development if the area is not remote and has been inaccessible only because of the conflict. At this stage, local people often do not see the potential of tourism, and those who see it do not have the means to invest in accommodation businesses, nor do they have the technical capacities required to operate it. Lack of funds [74,129,130], an evident lack of understanding of tourism, and inadequate capacities among rural people experienced in farming rather than the service sector, such as tourism, are considered the elemental factors inhibiting CBT [110,131,132,133,134]. Very often, the attitudes of local people are described as lacking business mentality, ambition, and competitive thinking [72]. In consequence, local populations fail to seize the opportunity to be the first to engage in tourism before external stakeholders and lose the power to control the speed and type of tourism development, which often generates undesirable consequences [93]. The resilience theory describes it in terms of drivers of change, breaking the threshold of the amount of change a system can experience and remain in the same state [25,31]. This lack of capacity to adapt can also be expressed in terms of the system’s high vulnerability [56,135] that stems from internal factors such as household income, education, and technical capacities, but also external factors such as national policies or local governance [37].

The process of transition from a complete absence of public authority during the times of conflict to the active engagement of local governments in the planning and development of tourism and strengthening local community organizations is critical. A strong community organization has been identified as a critical factor to unite diverse and often competing groups into community-wide efforts to deal with issues and opportunities, seek assistance outside if local capacities are limited, and facilitate collaboration with planning authorities and the private sector [85]. In reality, however, community organizations often take a passive stance or are reactive at best to tourism development that excludes planning and managing it [132]. Vulnerable post-conflict communities expect that these institutions will assume their mandate and support community initiatives with capacity building and financing and assume a supporting role in coordinating the aid from NGOs towards projects that benefit the local people.

Weak leadership or lack of technical capacities in community organizations explains community reliance on external support to accomplish things for the community [110]. Communities believe that tourism development authorities, such as the government, are able to plan and develop tourism for their benefit, but without their support [131,136,137]. The reliance on external support may also stem from the feeling that it is the government’s duty to plan economic development opportunities [71]. In Colombia, the decentralization of power to municipalities promised territorial planning with links to specific national programs or projects designed to foster local development [138]. In reality, as shown in the case of Minca, the slow responses or the inability of public entities to act on the needs of local people gives enough time for private investors to engage in an advantageous position of power [53].

5.2. Stage 2—Awakening: Realization About the Current Situation

Years of tourism development often lead to increased understanding and development of capacities among the local people, either from observation or direct employment in tourism businesses. Consequently, local engagement in tourism also increases, although only those who have resources and skills manage to open a business. Foreign business dominance often results in a high ratio of foreign employment, which reinforces division and negative perception of foreigners whose behavior is seen as opportunistic [54]. It also widens the socio-economic gap between those who operate tourism businesses and those who do not. At this stage, the level of cohesiveness of the inhabitants measured by their involvement in community project initiatives, association in unions, and trust in community leadership and neighbors is critical in maintaining control over tourism development. Fragmented development, with providers focusing entirely on micromanaging their own businesses, leads to reactive decision-making instead of planning and managing it [132,139]. It is an indicator of poor resilience [140].

The accelerated development and lack of control results in the oversupply of tourism businesses and competition. Tourism causes high demand for land, boosting its price and generating strong incentives for local people to sell it. This, in turn, leads to negative attitudes and distrust of local people who often have experiences of exploitation or dispossession during the conflict. At this point, the consequences of tourism development are clearly evident to the community and the external stakeholders witnessing the loss of cultural identity due to the change in economic activity and migration, and other social and environmental impacts [53].

5.3. Stage 3—Assimilation of External Entrepreneurs as a Condition for Building Community Resilience

A community that is vulnerable and possesses a limited adaptive capacity is likely to be less robust under stress and, consequently, less resilient [30,32]. Therefore, the capacity to learn from crises and the ability to self-organize and reorganize are critical to building resilience [141]. The literature suggests that tourism can help marginalized groups overcome challenges [29,142], even during post-conflict transitions [66].

Although external interests are often perceived as a threat to resilience [73,143], research acknowledges that the resulting social change can also spur innovation or adaptation, leading to stable or even enhanced social and economic contexts [24,66,144,145,146,147]. There is, albeit limited, evidence of increased social, cultural, and intellectual capital arising from interactions between migrants and locals [89]. However, building resilience by adapting to the pressures of tourism development led primarily by external stakeholders remains underexplored in the literature, as such cases are uncommon. On the contrary, an abundance of empirical evidence suggests that the presence of external entrepreneurs has predominantly negative impacts on community tourism development globally [45,68,93,95,148].

This paper argues that the impact of an initial driver of change or stressor, such as rapid, externally initiated, and led tourism development, can lead to adaptation and subsequently contribute to resilience. The critical question, however, is whether this adaptation results from an imposed framework or a conscious choice requiring proactive community efforts. Becken [32] distinguishes between ‘intrinsic adaptation,’ referring to system-inherent mechanisms of self-organization and change, and ‘proactive, planned adaptation’, which involves deliberate actions taken outside the system. Evidence from post-conflict destinations suggests that both forms of adaptation play significant roles [54]. While intrinsic adaptation prepares the community, proactive adaptation demands more assertive actions, without which destinations may fail to follow an adaptive path and instead enter maladaptive states, such as the ‘lock-in trap’ [149].

Adaptation is achieved through interactions among agents, where small adjustments accumulate over time to facilitate self-organization. However, such processes require time for structures to emerge that enable feedback loops (learning and adapting) and feed-forward loops (predicting and planning) [150]. Resilience theory conceptualizes this process as the degree to which a system can build the capacity to learn and adapt [25,31] through interaction and knowledge exchange, which are prerequisites for resilience [151]. In the early stages of imposed tourism development, communities gain time to understand tourism’s functions, including its benefits and drawbacks, and to build capacity through observation, direct work with external stakeholders, or formal training programs offered by governmental or non-governmental organizations at the national or local level. In this context, Reference [152] illustrates how members of a small community in Argentina fostered an entrepreneurial culture through the establishment of shared workspaces and capacity-building initiatives led by an NGO. Time also enables family members who left the community due to limited opportunities to return with enhanced skills and innovative ideas acquired elsewhere [41,72,153,154,155]. In a Colombian case study, time facilitated the assimilation of some lifestyle entrepreneurs who arrived early in the development process, ultimately leading to their acceptance by the community [53].

As noted earlier in this paper, resilience requires high levels of social capital, including leadership, technical capacities, community cohesion, equitable benefit distribution, cross-scale interactions, communication, and participative governance. While some of these requirements can be met through external assistance (e.g., from governments or NGOs), others necessitate community-building efforts [73]. Community-building entails assimilating and legitimizing external stakeholders, often leading tourism development, as full members of the community. Assimilation or acceptance in this context refers to the local community’s willingness to embrace and support these external entrepreneurs, recognizing their contributions and integrating them into the village’s social and economic fabric. This process is inherently reciprocal, requiring mutual effort from both migrants and the host community. Integration, in this context, entails embedding these entrepreneurs within the community, fostering social ties, engaging in local networks, and contributing to communal activities. These dynamics reflect social integration theory, which examines how individuals incorporate into social structures, highlighting the significance of social networks and mutual acceptance [156,157]. Social integration encompasses dimensions such as acculturation through the development and exchange of competencies and knowledge; positioning through assuming roles within society and gaining access to resources relevant to their societal positions; and identification through a sense of belonging to the host society [158]. The latter is characterized by the extent to which individuals maintain ties with group members and share common values, norms, and beliefs [159]. Conceptually, assimilation aligns closely with community embeddedness, defined by an individual’s connectedness within the social web of the community [160]. Higher levels of embeddedness indicate stronger professional and personal ties and a better alignment with community values and practices [161]. Prior studies demonstrate that social and spatial embeddedness can provide entrepreneurs with opportunities for collaboration, access to resources, and valuable advice and information [162]. However, a review of numerous case studies reveals that the existing literature provides limited evidence regarding the conditions required to integrate external stakeholders effectively for the success of community-based tourism initiatives [73,93,163].

Case studies suggest that assimilation is facilitated by cultural proximity, whereas significant cultural gaps act as barriers to the development of social capital and community cohesion [40,46,72,89]. The greater the cultural gap, the more time is typically required for assimilation. This challenge is particularly pronounced for foreign and seasonal migrants [72,164], especially in countries of the Global South [46]. However, even when local residents and external entrepreneurs share the same nationality, acceptance can take a long time due to substantial cultural and lifestyle differences [53,155,165], and in some cases, it is never fully achieved [69,163]. While studies report generally amicable daily interactions between locals and migrants, language barriers and cultural differences often limit these exchanges to surface-level interactions, such as small talk [46,153], or strictly business-related relationships [69].

Nevertheless, longitudinal studies, such as the one conducted by Matarrita-Cascante and Suess [68] in Chile, demonstrate significant improvements in relationships between amenity migrants and locals within three years of initial assessments. This improvement required both groups to make voluntary efforts to understand each other and engage in collaborative activities, often involving the resolution of complex situations. The ability to collaborate leads to the development of trust and action for the common good, which is a critical factor in fostering the acceptance of external stakeholders, as well as building social capital and a sense of community [46,166]. Trust is required for the transfer of tacit knowledge from external stakeholders to the community to operate at a similar level of competitiveness [167]. However, if interactions among different groups within the community are constrained or infrequent, purposive action cannot occur [89].

Therefore, the motivation of external stakeholders plays a crucial role in tourism development, and distinctions must be made based on their social and environmental ethics [168] and the desired level of integration within a destination [72,169,170,171]. ‘Amenity migrants’ or ‘lifestyle entrepreneurs’, who seek significant lifestyle changes (e.g., starting new life projects) facilitated by natural amenities play a critical role in shaping the path of local tourism development [68,172]. The literature on lifestyle entrepreneurship suggests that they exhibit greater resilience as their owners are committed to their chosen activity as a lifestyle choice rather than solely for economic reasons and, hence may be willing to receive lower amounts of income as long as they are able to maintain the activity that delivers lifestyle benefits to them [30,72,89]. It does not mean, however, that they desire integration with the local population and may see it as generally not important in their quest for a ‘good life’ [72].

Amenity migrants possess advantages over local populations in terms of education, skills, resources for investing in tourism, and connection to markets [72,120]. However, social exchange relationships are not built solely on power but on a combination of power and trust [173]. Trust-based relationships can enhance connections with external entrepreneurs who wield power and are able to use it for the community’s benefit [174]. Research indicates that while many external entrepreneurs are monetary-driven, some amenity migrants are motivated to contribute to community building and support local communities in reaping the benefits of tourism [72,175]. It could thus be argued that their successful assimilation depends on their acceptance as leaders of development under the assumption that their actions will represent the community’s collective interests. These interests include creating opportunities for local communities to benefit from tourism, whether by employing locals in migrants’ ventures or by enabling them to establish their own businesses [68]. However, both approaches present significant challenges.

In the first approach, as described by Matarrita-Cascante and Suess [68], amenity migrants focus on offering fair wages and encouraging locals to invest in and create their own businesses. While fair working conditions and strong personal relationships are important indicators of social cohesion and contribute to resilience against future crises [3,24], when a business model predominantly relies on employing locals as a labor force, it risks perpetuating existing power imbalances and reinforcing inequitable benefit distribution, which can lead to resentment and conflict [54,73,119]. Under these circumstances, local empowerment necessitates that migrants share extra-local resources and opportunities, fostering processes of knowledge exchange and local learning. This collaboration can elevate the destination to a more competitive level as local people gain access to resources and adopt innovative ideas introduced by migrants [72]. This is relatively common in rural tourism in developed countries where external stakeholders and local people share relatively similar cultural background, education, and access to resources [73]. However, even in these contexts, migrants’ efforts to contribute to local development and capacity building can be hindered by cultural barriers and a lack of compatibility with local customs and norms [72].

The reliance of local people on external stakeholders is partly driven by the economic benefits tourism provides [89,145] and the expectation that employment opportunities will eventually trickle down into broader economic benefits, enabling employees to start their own businesses. Social exchange theory [176,177,178] and dependency theory [179] help explain why communities often support the prominent role of amenity migrants in tourism development, even when such leadership does not fully align with their long-term interests. However, social exchange theory also suggests that employers’ encouragement for employees and local people to establish their own businesses is likely to persist only if these ventures do not compete directly with the employer’s operations or if tourism demand at the destination remains high enough to ensure continued profitability.

A review of a large number of case studies on lifestyle entrepreneurs shows that they typically lack of competitive behavior due to weak competitive environments found in rural areas and destinations in their early stages of development when local people are not engaged in tourism [180]. As the destination grows in popularity and more entrepreneurs appear, amenity migrants must become more competitive or go out of business [181,182]. Studies reveal that under these circumstances, even ‘concerned’ entrepreneurs may prioritize their own economic needs over those of the broader community [180]. In destinations where both community members and amenity migrants provide tourism services, competition frequently becomes a significant barrier to the development of social capital [53], a challenge commonly faced in community-based tourism (CBT) globally [93]. This local competition is further exacerbated by an oversupply of tourism accommodations, leading to low occupancy rates. Reduced profitability undermines amenity migrants’ ability to sustain their operations, ultimately forcing them to compete for customers despite profits not being the primary driver of venture initiation and operation. Lifestyle entrepreneurs’ competitive behavior might thus be shaped by the demand, as opposed to their motivations, preferences, or cooperative proclivities [180]. Such challenges have been widely documented in remote destinations in developing nations, even after several years of tourism development [183]. However, this dynamic is likely to weaken community cohesion and social capital [184], or enhance resilience [3,56].

The existing literature provides limited examples of the successful assimilation of amenity migrants leading to relatively balanced, co-owned tourism development. While the study by Matarrita-Cascante and Suess [68] demonstrates that employing local people and offering fair treatment can foster social capital, it does not specify the number or nature of local businesses owned and operated. This suggests that most local residents remain employed by the migrants and, as a result, possess limited agency and decision-making power in tourism development. When key development decisions are predominantly made by outsiders, participation occurs under unequal conditions [107,185]. This dynamic often results in uneven local growth, entrenching social and spatial inequalities over time [66], despite continued local support for migrant-led tourism initiatives due to employment opportunities and perceived fair treatment [73].

Studies offering effective community response strategies to the oversupply of tourism products relative to demand, and the resulting high competition, are scarce. Ruiz-Ballesteros [147] demonstrates how implementing internal policies that position tourism as a supplementary activity alongside other economic pursuits within the community can distribute benefits among more families. However, this success was facilitated by the cohesiveness of a relatively homogeneous community, an urgent need to defend territorial rights, and a shared understanding that cooperation and benefit-sharing were essential for advancing community-based tourism (CBT). These factors enabled the community to achieve self-organization.

In contrast, such conditions are absent in communities experiencing a significant influx of foreign entrepreneurs, whose business practices are often driven by personal ideals and a lack of integration into the local community. These entrepreneurs typically do not relinquish their independent approaches to align with communal benefit-sharing practices. This unwillingness, rooted in individualism and self-perceived ability to run businesses autonomously, is a key factor differentiating many CBT initiatives in developing countries from rural tourism models in the Global North [93,186]. Empirical evidence suggests that under these circumstances, communities engage in collective action only when faced with challenges that cannot be resolved individually, such as negotiating concessions in protected areas or preventing the establishment of foreign-owned businesses [127]. This approach tends to be most effective during the early stages of tourism development, before the influx of large numbers of external entrepreneurs. However, it is often difficult for communities to anticipate such developments as a threat until the situation has escalated beyond their control [54].

The only documented evidence of the successful assimilation of amenity migrants in the context of community-based tourism, albeit in the global North, is provided in a case study by Ruiz-Ballesteros and Cáceres-Feria [89]. The authors emphasize the complementarity of economic activities as a critical factor in fostering community cohesion. According to their findings, newcomers are accepted by local communities because they contribute skills and capacities that connect the destination to external markets. These migrants often engage in tourism activities requiring substantial skills and capital investment, such as operating hotels and tour enterprises, while local initiatives typically focus on familiar, lower-investment ventures, such as running restaurants or community accommodations. The absence of direct competition between the two groups is crucial, but it is equally important for locals to possess adequate skills and resources to participate in complementary activities that fulfill their economic needs.

The complementarity of economic activities offered by external actors and local communities, coupled with the resulting lack of competition, has primarily been observed in developed nations [89,187,188,189] and in China within its unique rural context [153,190]. This dynamic is particularly notable in rural areas of Japan, where external actors are often regarded as key contributors to the revitalization of rural communities. These communities typically comprise aging and retired agricultural workers who do not directly compete with external entrepreneurs but instead collaborate from the outset through planned neo-endogenous revitalization initiatives [62,165]. On the other hand, when local stakeholders do not compete, the perceived wider community benefits and limited negative impacts are decisive factors for the acceptance of external actors and support for tourism development [177,178].

In contrast, studies examining the assimilation of external entrepreneurs in amenity migration destinations in the global South are scarce. Most tourism research involving amenity-rich communities has focused on developed nations, particularly the United States, where communities tend to share similar economic and cultural characteristics [46]. The existing literature suggests that the assimilation of in-migrants whose culture and lifestyle differ significantly from those of the local people is rare in remote destinations within developing nations, which are characterized by relatively young populations. This rarity is not only due to the differences in social capital and skills but also to low visitor influx and the operation of businesses at persistently low occupancy rates, even after years of activity [183].

These challenges exacerbate local competition for visitors and hinder both the integration of external entrepreneurs and their willingness to share benefits. Under such conditions, a strong community-based organization (CBO) serves as a mechanism to resist external pressures [147]. The CBO can regulate who is permitted to operate tourism businesses and under what conditions. Additionally, it aims to slow the pace of tourism growth to ensure that demand aligns with current supply levels, thereby fostering local cooperation rather than competition.

It is not uncommon for communities to establish regulatory frameworks that strictly prohibit external industry players from engaging in commercial activities [29,127] or to pressure public institutions to implement policies that protect local interests [38]. Although this level of self-regulation or influence over public policy is most often exercised by indigenous or ancestral communities with legal protection under communal land ownership, it is not exclusively limited to such groups. Communities operating within free-market systems have also demonstrated the potential to achieve similar outcomes. For instance, a case study of Hoi An in central Vietnam illustrates how community adaptability can manifest through organized, bottom-up responses. Local actors successfully pressured the government to adopt policies favoring locally driven development in response to challenges such as price wars and an oversupply of accommodations operated by external investors. As a result, municipal agencies introduced restrictions on licensing new tourism businesses and land acquisition [38].

Such bottom-up initiatives, however, require functional governance structures and the presence of local institutions with formal jurisdiction to enact community-benefiting planning decisions. Recent developments in the Global North reflect a similar trend, where policies promoting a ‘local turn in tourism’ are being implemented or seriously considered in response to tourism’s adverse effects on residents’ quality of life [191,192]. What was once considered unfeasible is now becoming a common and widely accepted response strategy for destinations of all sizes.

Restricting new external stakeholders from entering the tourism sector offers an additional benefit beyond reducing competition: it creates time for relationships to develop between locals and the existing group of migrants. Over time, these interactions can help break down barriers and foster trust [68,89]. Conversely, constant migration and community reorganization can slow down or even impede the process of building social capital [40]. This challenge can be mitigated if the local population adopts a neolocal stance toward development. As defined by Schnell [193] (p. 56), neolocalism is “the conscious attempt of individuals and groups to establish, rebuild, and cultivate local ties, local identities, and increasingly, local economies”. By embracing this stance, communities become custodians of a cherished place, assuming rights and responsibilities that may include selectively welcoming tourists [191,192].

The willingness to assimilate, however, is not universal among all external stakeholders [72,168,170,171]. Even those who express a willingness to assimilate and contribute to community building often encounter cultural barriers and must develop an understanding of how to deliver their support effectively [194]. While ‘lifestyle entrepreneurs’ are more likely to engage with the community to achieve mutual benefits, ‘profit-driven investors’ may also support protectionist approaches. Stakeholders residing at the destination are more likely to perceive the negative impacts of tourism growth and have an incentive to participate in collective actions to mitigate these effects [53]. In contrast, stakeholders who do not reside at the destination are typically motivated to join such efforts only if they align with their economic interests. This process, however, remains underexplored, highlighting the need for a more nuanced understanding of stakeholder motivations and roles to foster successful collaborations between local populations and external actors.

6. Conclusions

The paper argues that post-conflict destinations undergo three critical stages after achieving peace, which shape the conditions for tourism development. The first stage involves accelerated tourism development driven by external stakeholders who are quick to recognize the destination’s natural and/or cultural potential. These stakeholders often enjoy significant advantages over local communities. During this stage, community resilience to externally initiated tourism development is crucial for maintaining control over the activity, though it is typically limited. Nonetheless, the paper suggests that even when initial rapid development surpasses the community’s adaptive capacities, it can catalyze a gradual process of adaptation that ultimately fosters resilience.

The paper demonstrates that community resilience necessitates high levels of social capital, encompassing leadership, technical capacity, equitable benefit distribution, cross-scale interactions, effective communication, and participatory governance, among other factors, to effectively adapt to the impacts of externally initiated and controlled tourism development. These conditions can only be achieved within a cohesive community, which depends on the assimilation of external entrepreneurs and a community-building process shaped by both externally imposed frameworks and conscious internal efforts. Without deliberate community engagement, resilience cannot be achieved. Moreover, resilience-building is not a static process but an evolving one, requiring communities to continuously adapt and reorganize in response to changing socio-political and economic conditions.

The transition from the involvement of external stakeholders in the first stage, through accelerated development in the second stage, to the community’s proactive engagement in the third stage, is essential for developing an understanding of tourism, its impacts, and the necessary skills and support for active participation. At this stage, both bottom-up proactive efforts and top-down governmental support are critical for regaining local control over tourism development and building resilient communities. Government involvement is necessary to facilitate participatory planning processes and to support community-based organizations (CBOs) that regulate and oversee tourism development.

The research highlights the pivotal role of amenity migrants in shaping local governance and social capital during the early stages of development. Moreover, amenity migrants can serve as agents of change, driving resilience-building efforts in later stages of destination development. Collaboration for the common good requires the assimilation of external actors, including recent arrivals, into the community—an essential factor that should no longer be overlooked.

However, the scarcity of documented examples in the literature of successful integration of external entrepreneurs in destinations within the global South is concerning. The concept of complementarity described in the paper emerges as a particularly valuable strategy, although its applicability is limited due to the high level of coordination required among local stakeholders or the need for robust regulatory frameworks. The absence of direct competition between locals and external actors remains a critical factor in fostering community cohesion. Whether enforced by a local CBO or achieved through governmental pressure, restricting tourism growth is likely to benefit all stakeholders by increasing demand for existing products and services. Nevertheless, local residents must possess sufficient skills and resources to engage in complementary economic activities that fulfill their needs. The role of lifestyle entrepreneurs, who demonstrate a willingness to integrate and act in the interest of the broader community, is indispensable. Their active participation and commitment to mutual benefit can significantly enhance community resilience and cohesion in post-conflict tourism destinations.

7. Knowledge Gaps and Research Opportunities

Based on an extensive review of the literature, this study identifies critical conditions for resilience-building in destinations across the Global South, with particular emphasis on post-conflict destinations that are especially fragile. While these conditions have garnered significant attention from scholars, there is comparatively little empirical evidence demonstrating how they can be cultivated in developing countries where tourism initiatives failed to emerge before external stakeholders gained control, thereby forfeiting local power over the pace and nature of tourism development.

Although amenity migrants can play a pivotal role in fostering community resilience, the research underscores that their successful assimilation into the community is either necessary or highly desirable. However, there is a notable lack of studies documenting this process in countries of the Global South. Longitudinal research is needed to determine whether providing fair wages and equitable treatment to community members employed in amenity migrants’ businesses is sufficient to foster cohesive and resilient communities. Limited existing research highlights competition as a critical barrier to community building. Future studies should investigate the conditions and strategies for mitigating competition, as well as the influence of amenity migrants’ motivations and their attitudes toward community building in destinations in developing countries. There is a need to understand when, why, and how amenity migrants engage in cooperation, coopetition, and competition in the context of CBT. Furthermore, research should examine whether complementarity, one of the strategies discussed in this paper, only emerges organically or can be deliberately implemented as a destination management policy during the early stages of development.

Drawing from limited evidence of successful strategies, this paper advocates for the use of protectionist policies in destinations suffering from internal competition and the oversupply of tourism products. Such policies can be adopted locally through community consensus or implemented by local governments in response to community pressure. However, further investigation is required to assess the feasibility of these strategies and their long-term impacts on destination development.